A Blair County district judge sent two Penn State football players to trial on refiled aggravated assault charges yesterday -- charges that were originally thrown out by another judge before his removal from the case.
Blair County Magisterial District Judge Fred Miller found that there was enough evidence to send defensive tackle Chris Baker, 20, and linebacker Navorro Bowman, 19, to trial on one first-degree felony count each of aggravated assault in connection with a HUB-Robeson Center incident where police say as many as 15 football players kicked and stomped a Philadelphia man while he was on the ground.
Baker and Bowman were charged in mid-November with aggravated assault, summary offenses of harassment and stalking, and misdemeanor charges of simple assault and disorderly conduct.
Baker accrued his second felony charge with the new aggravated assault charge, raising the possibility of revocation of his bail. He also faces charges from an April altercation in a downtown apartment complex. Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira said he has not yet decided whether to ask the court to revoke Baker's bail.
This is the men's second preliminary hearing. Centre County Magisterial District Judge Carmine Prestia dismissed aggravated assault charges against the players at a Dec. 5 preliminary hearing.
Centre County Assistant District Attorney Steve Sloane filed a motion to remove Prestia from presiding over yesterday's preliminary hearing citing several "errors in law" he believes Prestia made. Centre County President Judge David Grine ruled in favor of Sloane's motion Tuesday, replacing Prestia with Miller from neighboring Blair County.
Sloane won the preliminary hearing on a promise to present evidence that was not presented at the first hearing. At yesterday's hearing, he called the same four witnesses as the Dec. 5 hearing: three eyewitnesses and the alleged victim, Temple University student Varney Capehart.
At the first hearing, none of the four witnesses could definitively testify that both players had assaulted Capehart to a degree violent enough to warrant aggravated assault charges, but Sloane extracted additional testimony from the witnesses at yesterday's hearing to support the charges.
Defense attorneys Karen Muir, who represents Baker, and Stacy Parks Miller, who represents Bowman, highlighted several discrepancies in the witnesses' testimony between the first and second hearings.
The arresting officer, Penn State Police Sgt. Cyprien Brien, testified yesterday that Baker was wearing a black do-rag the night of the alleged assault while at a previous hearing he testified Baker was not. One of the eyewitnesses also testified he could not recall the victim being kicked at the previous hearing but testified yesterday he did remember the kicks to Capehart's body.
The defense attorneys also argued that the prosecution's witnesses' accounts of the fight differed substantially from one another.
"Judge, I'm not sure just which commonwealth witness you will choose to believe because they were all over the board about what happened that night," Parks Miller said during her closing argument.
Sloane, in turn, argued that some discrepancies are unavoidable.
"They're trying to do their best and recall what happened ... In an environment like this, it would be pretty suspicious if everyone recalled the same thing," Sloane said.
Sloane also said he wasn't worried about the witnesses' identifications of Baker and Bowman. While all the witnesses were able to identify the players in court, several could not recall key details like clothing, and the victim initially identified a different football player as the main aggressor.
"We have video of most of this incident," Sloane said, noting that surveillance camera videos show Baker and Bowman leaving Heritage Hall and later running from the scene of the disturbance. "When the jury sees that, it won't really matter what kinds of insinuations the defense attorneys make about my witnesses."
The investigation into the fight is still continuing, Sloane said, and it is possible more charges may be filed against other players.
